On Sep 11, 9:40*pm, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:36:23 -0700, Fred the Red Shirt wrote:

While tariffs were a divisive issue, the expansion of slavery into
the Western territories, which was essential for the survival
of slavery, was the issue the led to secession and the Civil War.

Fred, what I was trying to clarify was that the issue that led to
secession and the issue that led to war were not the same. *There are
several books out there of writings from the time that will clarify my
point, if you're interested enough to look for them.

Of course they were different. The issue that led to the
war was secession itself.

The notion that Northern Industrialists pushed for war
out of the fear that that tariff-free goods from Europe
would be smuggled across the new Southern border
ignores both the desire for tariff free goods on the
part of most of the North outside of the extreme Northeast
(NY, NJ, eastern PA, and New england) as well as the
long undefended border with Canada across which
they could be even more easily smuggled, given that
much of that border was defined by navigable bodies
of water.

If contemporary authors made that argument, I submit
that it was no more valid than the WMD arguments used
to go to war with Iraq. It may have inflamed the passions
of some of the less observant persons, but was at its
heart, disingenuous.

There is a one-time popular historical school of Confederate
apologists who made a career of glorifying the Confederacy,
and downplaying both the evils of slavery and its role in
dividing the nation. They are usually identifiable by their
preference for the term "War between the States", and
term which perforce denies the 100,000 plus Union troops
raised from within the Confederacy itself (not counting
the border states), as well as a similar number of troops
raised in the North from recent ex-Southerners.

Of course the last story of the Civil War to be told is
probably that of the 50,000 or so Negro troops raised
by the Confederacy. That is a story almost everyone
wants to forget.

But I digress.

--

FF